Leapster facts for kids

A girl with a Leapster.

The Leapster Learning Game System was a special handheld game console. It was made by LeapFrog Enterprises for kids aged 4 to 10. These games helped players learn the alphabet, phonics, and basic math. They also taught about art and animals.

The Leapster had a directional pad and a touchscreen. You could use a stylus pen to tap and draw directly on the screen. This made games interactive and fun.

In 2008, LeapFrog released the Leapster2. This was an improved version of the original Leapster. The Leapster2 added a USB port and an SD card slot. These new features let you download games and save your game data. You could also track what you learned and save your art.

The Leapster Explorer was released in June 2010. Games made after the Leapster2 came out could record what users did. This data was sent to LeapFrog's "Learning Path" system. This system helped track how much a user learned. Completing certain activities could unlock online games. If you created art on the device, you could make it even better online. You could also print your art from a computer. The original Leapster was stopped in 2014, and the Leapster2 was stopped in 2019.

Games for Leapster Consoles

There are about 40 games available for the Leapster systems. Over 50 games were created in total. This is the largest collection of games for an educational handheld console.

All Leapster games have a "Hint" button. If you press it, you get audio or animated help. This makes it easier to understand game instructions.

LeapFrog mostly made their own games for the Leapster. They did not let many other companies make games for it.

Popular Licensed Games

Many games on the Leapster were based on popular movies and TV shows. Here are some of the games you could play:

How the Leapster Works

The Leapster uses special parts to run its games.

Inside the Leapster

• CPU: The main brain of the system is an ARCTangent-A5 CPU. It runs at 96 MHz.
• Memory: The original Leapster had 2 MB of RAM. The Leapster2 had more, with 16 MB of RAM.
• Games: Games came on cartridges. These cartridges could hold between 4 and 16 MB of game data.
• Graphics: A special ATI chip handled the graphics.
• Sound: The Leapster had its own sound system. It could play music and voices.
• Screen: The screen was 160x160 pixels and had a touchscreen.
• Leapster2 Extras: The Leapster2 also had a USB port and an SD card slot. Some Leapster2 models used built-in memory instead of an SD slot.

All the games for the first Leapster were made using Macromedia Flash MX 2004. The device used a special version of Adobe Flash Player. This made it faster to create games for the Leapster system.